Smoke detectors

Volunteer Brad Eells got settled in the High Point Lookout tower on Palomar Mountain earlier this month. Eells helped renovate the tower, and gave the interior a 1964 look. The circular device in the foreground is an Osborne Firefinder, used to pinpoint fire locations.
— John Gastaldo / John Gastaldo / Union-Tribune

Volunteer Brad Eells got settled in the High Point Lookout tower on Palomar Mountain earlier this month. Eells helped renovate the tower, and gave the interior a 1964 look. The circular device in the foreground is an Osborne Firefinder, used to pinpoint fire locations.
— John Gastaldo / John Gastaldo / Union-Tribune

PALOMAR MOUNTAIN -- Shortly after 9 p.m. on the Fourth of July, Brad Eells scanned the horizon from his perch atop the newly renovated High Point Lookout tower at the apex of Palomar Mountain.

In every direction fireworks displays were bursting over the heads of spectators, but Eells was looking down on them.

“I stopped counting at 100,” he said. “I could see clear down the San Gabriel Valley, into Orange County. I could even see the show at Lake Arrowhead above the mountain ridge!”

And that's the point. From the tower, Eels has an unparalleled view of five Southern California counties. Retrofitted over the past few months, the tower is now manned almost every day by volunteers looking for the first wisps of smoke that could indicate a brush fire has started.

The tower is a testament to how sometimes the way things used to be done are still the best.

Originally built in 1934 by the U.S. Forest Service, the tower was replaced in 1964 with the existing 28,000-pound, 67-foot-tall steel tower topped by a 13-foot-by-13-foot steel cab.

In 1992, the service closed the tower permanently as the agency backed away from the manpower-intensive lookouts partly to save money and partly in favor of other methods of detecting fires. The tower was boarded up and quickly fell into disrepair.

In stepped Eells, a member of the Forest Fire Lookout Association, a national group established in 1990 devoted to refurbishing and maintaining the old lookouts.

The organization's idea is simple: There's still a lot of value having people scanning the horizon for smoke.

Late last year, Eells, in full cooperation with the Forest Service, took on the project of renovating the tower so that the inside of the cab would look much like it would have in 1964.

“We tried to rebuild everything according to the original plans,” Eells said. “While we do have a little bit of modern convenience in there, (better radios, for instance) we have tried to make it look like it was when it opened up.”

Copies of magazines from that year sit on cabinets. The dull green paint the Forest Service used then adorns the walls. Even a gas stove and lantern have been placed in the cab, although there is no gas to run them. The reason for the retro look, Eells said, is that it's cool.

All the work was done by volunteers and paid for with private donations.

The refurbished tower went into service June 13. About 30 volunteer lookouts are now part of the High Point program, not enough to staff the tower all the time.

Eventually, the goal is to have the tower staffed 24 hours a day in the most dangerous part of fire season, Eells said. Even at night, he said, flames can be seen from miles away.

More volunteers are welcome, but they will need to be prepared for the isolation that comes with being high above the ground at the top of a mountain in a fairly inaccessible part of the county – not to mention that it is a long climb down to the restroom.

“Some people joined because they like the isolation,” Eells said. “Others come up here as couples.”

“It's wonderful up there, so quiet,” Miller said. “The view is breathtaking. It's amazing to be able to see so far, and it feels like a big responsibility.”

Miller said the main reason she volunteered was because “I really feel like it's going to make a difference in preventing future firestorms.”

Fire officials say the quicker a fire is reported, especially when strong winds are blowing, the better the chance that it can be kept from roaring out of control.

The tower also functions as a weather observatory. Volunteers dutifully report temperatures, wind and humidity levels to the Forest Service.

On July 5, a historic moment took place. For the first time in 17 years a “smoke check” alert was called out from the tower when Forest Service Battalion Chief Wes Ruise, visiting some volunteers that day, saw smoke about 40 miles in the distance. Eels said it was most likely a field burn in Imperial County, a common occurrence on permissive burn days.

A small fire July 11 started on Palomar Mountain a few miles from the tower. By the time smoke came up over a small hill, the fire already had been reported.

Visitors are not allowed to climb the tower yet, but that is likely to change in a few weeks once the Forest Service has satisfied its insurers that the tower is sound.

But it's tough getting there. The fastest route by car travels through property owned by Caltech next to the nearby Palomar Observatory and there are several locked gates. The adventurous can take some long dirt roads, and hikers find their way up there every now and then.

Eells said the next project he hopes to undertake is renovating the Hot Springs Mountain Lookout, a 23-foot-tall wooden tower that sits atop the highest peak in the county – 6,533 feet – on the Los Coyotes Indian Reservation east of Warner Springs.

An informal engineering inspection of that tower was conducted last weekend. It hasn't operated since the late 1970s and is in great disrepair.

The Hot Springs tower was constructed in 1912. It was the Cleveland National Forest's first fire lookout. A new lookout was completed in 1928, and the current structure was built in 1942.